Isolation And Identification Of New Lipolytic Thermophilic Bacteria From An Indian Hot Spring

Abstract

Thermophilic lipase producing bacteria have been isolated and characterized from an Indian hot spring, isolates named as AK-P1, AK-P2 and AK-P3 respectively. The strain AK-P2 was first of its kind with reference to its lipase producing potential. The phylogenetic analysis of these strains using 16S rDNA sequence data revealed that the strain AK-P1 had highest homology (100%) with Acinetobacter sp. 01B0;, AK-P2 had highest homology (99.9%) with Brevibacillus borstelensis; AR9 and AK-P3 have shown 99.2 % similarities with Porphyrobacter cryptus (T); ALC-2. Maximal lipase production by AK-P2 was observed at the end of the stationary phase (36 h). The optimum temperature and pH for this crude enzyme activity was 60ºC and 10.0 respectively. Enzyme extracted from AK-P2 exhibited a Km 0.052mM and Vmax 0.645 μM/min/ml with p-nitrophenyl laurate as a substrate.